if nobody sees my art, does it really matter at all?

I had a high school English teacher once who posed this question to us.

If I write a poem, and nobody reads it, does it hold any value?

If I paint a portrait, and I throw it away, is it time wasted?

If I pour my heart and soul out into writing about my sorrows and hope for the world, and I tuck it away underneath my bed for no one to come across, did it ever really matter?

If I try so very hard at something only for nobody to notice it, only to never even be noticed, is it even worth it?

When I was 19 years old, I asked a friend of mine to read a piece of my writing, perhaps for the first time ever. I was excited and scared to share it with him because it was a very vulnerable thing for me to do. I remember when I sent it to him I felt like I was sharing a big part of myself with him . He told me he would get around to reading it and thanked me for sharing it with him. He never got around to reading it. Or at least, to my knowledge, he didn’t.

It hurt me more than I wanted to admit.

There is something so vulnerable about wanting to share something you’ve created with someone, especially when there is a specific intent behind why you want to share it with that person specifically. I’d rather not repeat this experience of sharing something so personal and sacred to me with people in my life if they are not going to take it as seriously as I do. Maybe it is not that deep to everyone, perhaps not everyone gets it, but for me, my writing is sacred, and I don’t believe that everyone deserves access to seeing this particular side of me. I am scared of people taking advantage of it, once they discover these parts of myself that I cannot otherwise express without this craft. I am scared of pouring my heart and soul and my anxieties about the future and what haunts me about the past and what gives me hope and what feels beautiful to me into word and metaphors and irony on paper only for someone to take advantage of it, only for someone to turn it against me, or worse, for someone close to me to shrug it off when I share it with them.

I guess it’s because I know how difficult it can be to simply start. To first believe in your words enough to see them on paper, to then feel comfortable and willing enough to want to share them with a friend, a significant other, a family member, beyond that— to want them to read it, to want to connect with someone through something you’ve created, envisioned, and spitballed into something real. Even as a child, I remember feeling a similar pinch of pain; I’d spend my weekends crafting what I used to call ‘family newspapers’ where I’d put together a series of events and articles I’d write that happened within my family that week or month. I remember running into my parents’ room with an ecstatic smile on my face and await their reaction— which was always glorious, reciprocating excitement back for me, but my smile would eventually fade when I’d see them stash what I made away in a pile of papers that they’d never pick up again. I wasn’t looking for acknowledgment through a smile or a hug, I wanted what I made to be read. I wanted to receive a response. I wanted them to engage.

I wanted someone to write back.

I am not looking for validation and attention, I am looking for an acknowledgment in the fact that I am giving a part of myself to you, and that is not something to take lightly. I sometimes ponder about the fact that here I am, sharing my writing and sharing this part of my world to strangers on Substack, meanwhile there are people in my own life who do not read these words. There are people who I’ve never met who may see me in a way that the people in my own life will not because they may never come across these words.

On some level, I’ve always written to myself. I’ve written for fun, written for giggles, written to cope with difficult times, written to calm myself down, to make sense of things, and more. More times than not, I would say I did not think twice about whether or not I was writing for an audience or for someone to read, but that I was writing for myself.

If I share my art with someone intentionally and they do not see it, then it will hurt.

If I share it with the world with no expectation for anyone to see, and instead, focus on what I am producing for the sake of the craft, then it will never lose value.

I have always written to myself and will probably always write to myself and share words with myself that no one will ever know or read or see and it will still be of a value because to me, any creative art will always hold objective value to the person who makes it.

I ask myself if my thought process could also be asked of the natural world—and if the answers would still hold true.

If no one watches the sunset, does it lose its beauty?

If nobody ever gazed at the Northern Lights, would they be any less magnificent?

If my eyes never lingered on this specific community of trees overlooking the Pacific Northwest, would they be any less valuable?

If this stream and its trail of pebbles and rocks were never seen, would their significance to the world diminish?

If art goes unseen, does it cease to be art?

Does a craft need to be witnessed to hold its worth?

I believe it does not.

Ocean Vuong writes, “To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”

There is a duality of being noticed. It can either lead to admiration, or to harm. And that is a risk that every writer and/or artist has to grapple with in regards to what they create.

I’d like to think that beauty, in all its forms, transcends the gaze of the observer.

It exists, independent and whole, whether or not it is ever seen.